Google is neither buying nor running many online display ads, but Microsoft and MySpace are

August 26, 2008 | MG Siegler

Google has become almost ubiquitous with online advertising at this point. But it doesn’t control all facets. Specifically, in terms of display ads, Google is neither running many on its sites or buying much to promote its brand. But some of its rivals are, according to comScore’s new June numbers.

Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft all place ahead of Google on the top ad publisher list. These are the sites that run the most display ads. The search giant controls just 1.5 percent on the display ad share, while Yahoo, for example, controls 10.5 percent.

Of course, it has to be noted that by far the top publisher on the list is Fox Interactive Media — which includes the social network MySpace, which has an advertising deal with Google. It controls 15.9 percent of the display ad market.

Meanwhile, Microsoft controlled the top online display advertisers list. That is, it buys the most display advertising online. This was mostly due to a huge online advertising campaign for Windows Live Search during June, according to comScore.

Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , ,

Photo of MG Siegler

About the Author, MG Siegler

MG Siegler writes about technology trends and new media for VentureBeat, with a focus on mobile topics, social elements and key news stories. Before that, MG wrote about technology on his blog, ParisLemon. Originally from Ohio, MG attended the University of Michigan where he studied film. He's previously lived in Los Angeles where he worked in Hollywood and in San Diego where he did web development. He now lives in San Francisco.

  • Goog just opened up their AdManager system to a wider audience, after limiting it to initial trial users. I haven't used it yet, but I want to try it. It is an interesting small business complement to their newly acquired DoubleClick assets for large advertisers.
  • Yeah, definitely looks intriguing Don. More options are always better.
  • Uhm MG - where does Google run ANY display ads at all? And #1 rarely needs to market, it's the others who do. That's why you see Apple running iPhone ads.
  • Main point wasn't that Google isn't running them, more that they aren't showing them in large numbers on their sites - I just didn't want the title to be 4 lines long.
  • gotcha
  • Ryan
    Is "Google Sites" the entire google content network?
  • T.Armstronger
    Ditto.

    They run billions of impressions on the content network, you just don't know they're from Google. I don't think there is a way for Comscore or any other 3p to distinguish between the text ads and display ads on their network since they're all served by the same domain.

    Here lies Google's under-the-radar-rainmaker...insiders know just how much they're already making from display on the content network x-DCLK.
  • What I find to be the most interesting about the stats issued by comScore is that Yahoo still has the highest reach of display ads to unique users - Yahoo is not the web property displaying more ads than anybody else but the reach of 72% seems to be amazing to me.
  • T.Armstronger
    Reach can be misleading to advertisers. You need to look at frequency as well. BTW, the Google Network has the largest reach and you can run display, video or text advertising - any of those formats are valid.

    Would you rather hit ever person in the USA once or your target audience 4x.
  • True, reach can be (and is) misleading often and Google obviously shows more ads of other types (I don't have stats but I tend to believe it must be on the top position if all ad types were combined). As for the choice between reaching US audience once or target audience 4x, the latter option is quite obvious unless you actually target all the US audience. And I'm not quite sure if Yahoo's second position is about it pushing less ads to each reached user or about it not being able to sell all the impressions it could potentially generate.